So You Want to Apply For a UK Visa? Here’s How I Did It.

I just wanted to note that I am applying from Toronto, Ontario, Canada so if you are from somewhere else, some of this might not apply to you.

The type of Visa I will be applying for is the Tier 5 (Youth Mobility Scheme) Visa which you can apply for if you:

want to live and work in the UK for up to 2 years

are in between the age of 18-30

have £1890 in savings

have certain types of British Nationality or from:

Australia

Canada

Japan

Monaco

New Zealand

Hong Kong

Republic of Korea

Taiwan

However, you aren’t eligible if you have:

children living with you

children you’re financially responsible for

already been in the UK under the scheme or in the former ‘working holidaymaker’ category

For more info on eligibility, you can visit the UK government site here.

Why Am I Applying for a Visa?

To visit the UK for up to 6 months, you are not required to have a Visa but you are also not allowed to work within the country. I applied for this Visa because it allows me to work most jobs and/or be self-employed for up to 24 months. I can also leave and come back in whenever I want within that 24 month period. For more general info about the visa click here.

Applying For My UK Visa

After doing my research, I finally started my visa application which is done online. It was pretty simple as the website does a very good job at walking you through the process. It only took me about 30-45 minutes to complete everything. I needed my passport as well as my parent’s passports.

I start by creating an account, pretty standard username, password, and e-mail confirmation kind of stuff. After that, I had to fill in a bunch of personal information including the address of where I am planning to stay, my passport information as well as my parents’ so have them ready. You will also need to indicate the date you plan on going, however, do not book anything until you receive your Visa. Note that when and if you get approved of your Visa, you will receive a 30 day vignette which you have to use within 30 days of your indicated travel date. If you don’t do this you have to pay a fee of £122 to reapply for another vignette.

Fees

There are a couple of fees you must pay online before you send your application. The first fee covers the application process and biometrics and I paid exactly $876.93. The second fee is for the Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) and allows you to use their healthcare for the duration of your Visa. At the time of my application, this fee cost me $493.27. The total cost of my Visa application came up to $1370.20.

Scheduling an Appointment for Biometrics

After paying all the fees, I was prompted to schedule an appointment at the UK Visa Application Centre in Toronto located at 208 Bloor St. Suite 601. I was applying on Sunday and scheduled my appointment for the earliest possible date which was the following Tuesday. Once all of this was completed a bunch of e-mail confirmations were sent to me, some of which included receipts for the fees and a reminder of my freshly scheduled appointment.

Documents You Need to Bring to Application Centre

There are a few documents I was instructed to bring with me to my appointment:

In the confirmation e-mail, they said to come on time, not too early because they won’t let you in and not too late because they’ll make you reschedule. I got there a 10 minutes before 12:00pm, my scheduled time. I walk into a tiny room with a security guard sitting at a desk. He asks me for my name and ID and tells me to fill up a sign-in sheetand hands me another form which I have to fill in once I get into the next room. After signing in, I had to put everything into a locker except for all the required documents. He then ran his metal detector to make sure I didn’t have any weapons on me. Once he realized I wasn’t a terrorist, he pressed a button which unlocked the next door which led to an empty room with a bunch of chairs and three kiosks, one of them manned by a government employee. This room kind of reminded me of a driver’s test centre. I filled out the information sheet given to me and proceeded to see the man sitting at the kiosk. He was a typical government employee, cold and on a power trip. He asked for all my documents, asked me questions, packaged it in a DHL shipping bag, handed it back to me along with a piece of paper, and sent me to an adjacent room where I had my biometrics done. It was a tiny room with a man sitting across a desk which had a computer, printer and a machine which would record my fingerprints. Once I finished getting my fingerprints scanned, hehanded me a receipt which I would have to bring with me when I pick up my passport and visa.You can pay a few dollars to have it delivered or you can pick it up at the same place for free. I asked him how long it would take since I have heard from different people who have gotten their Visas that it ranges from 1-3 months. He told me it would be about 10-15 days. I then asked him out of curiosity if it was possible to get it sooner and he told me if i paid about $250, I could get it in 5-10 days. I decided to wait since I am not in a huge rush but I guess I got lucky because mine was ready for pickup the following Monday!

Picking up My Visa

As mentioned earlier, I decided to not pay to have my Visa delivered and opted to pick it up instead. Pick-up times for the UK Visa Application Centre in Toronto is between 4pm and 5pm. When I got there, I had to do the whole sign in process again. Once buzzed into the room, I had to show my ID and receipt for my application. The government official handed me a legal envelope, told me to have a seat in the back and check if all the documents are correct. I took a seat and opened the envelope. Inside was the bank statement I provided, my passport with my new UK Visa inside on one of the pages, and a letter detailing the conditions of my Visa and what to do when I arrive in the UK which included when and where to pick up my Biometrics Residence Permit (BRP) which I will need to re-enter the country and more importantly, work in the UK. You choose which post office to pick-up your BRP during the online application process. You must pick it up within 10 days of your arrival within the UK or face a penalty, reduction or cancellation of your leave.

Conclusion

So there you have it. I started my application on a Sunday, submitted all my documents to the UK Visa Application Centre the following Tuesday, received an e-mail stating that my application got approved on Friday, and received another e-mail on Monday stating that my Visa can be picked up. That’s 8 days from applying online to physically holding my Visa with a total cost of $1370.20.

I’m happy to say that it was a pretty easy and painless process and I hope this post makes it even easier for you. So now that I have laid out the whole process, you know exactly what to expect, which means you have one less excuse to put off your plans to live and work abroad!